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By Alek Yerbury,

Party Leader

 

Yesterday was the anniversary of the D-Day landings, a significant event of the last World War. In five months time, will be Remembrance Day, the annual commemoration of war dead which began after the First World War. I look at these events from the perspective of someone who has been in the British Army. This said, I have observed over the course of even my own lifetime how the military and wars have become what I can only describe as fetishised - by politicians and campaigners who see these things as a way of disingenuously pushing an agenda.

 

You can observe it most brutally on Remembrance Day, when politicians across the spectrum line up in a ceremonial way to stare at the floor for a couple of minutes, pretending to remember things and people that they have no knowledge of. Not only are the events they are supposed to be remembering almost entirely beyond living memory, but the overwhelming majority of them have never even been in the military. And yet there they stand anyway, trying to harvest other people’s sacrifices and glory for their own purposes, spinning platitudes about the things that people supposedly did or didn’t fight and die for. Their perspective of course, is of people who have no clue whatsoever.

 

Although the time between the last World War and today has grown to almost beyond a lifetime, I have seen the false idolatry and disingenuous worship increase as opposed to diminish. This is largely because these kind of exploitative antics, especially by people with no military background whatsoever, would have been torn to pieces in the 1950s, 60s or 70s, when the majority of the population had direct experience of war. But now, that is no longer the case, and it has given a free hand to fakes, political charlatans and people obsessed with glory by-proxy to try and co-opt the struggles of other people.

 

 All of these factors are precisely why the majority of people have no time for anyone, of any political persuasion, who tries to use the military and war in a disingenuous way to win an argument. Whether it is people invoking the Second World War as the basis for arguing a point about fascism or national socialism, or people invoking Lee Rigby as the basis for arguing a point about immigrants, or people using Remembrance Day as a basis for arguing a point about make-believe ‘British values’, it is equally disingenuous. If people have to rely on invoking the hardships and sacrifices of not only other people, but also events beyond living memory, as the justification for their argument, then their argument is not a good one. Any more than someone invoking slavery in the American South to make a point about race relations laws has a valid argument.

 

What I ultimately ask for is for the fetishisation and false idolatry to come to an end. People absolutely should respect and admire the military and sacrifices made by our people over the generations, BUT they should only ever do so in a genuine way, and see them for exactly what they are or were. People who use those things purely to get attention for themselves, argue otherwise awful talking points, or inflate their own sense of worth, should be actively shunned by a society of decent people.

 

If people wish to venerate the military of their own choice, then they should also aspire to follow that example, if it is an example they are wiling to put on a pedestal. This is one of the reasons why both I and the Party argue for mandatory military service for all young men – because making sacrifices for the protection of your National Community is a collective responsibility.

 

The political class of today are so pathologically devoid of integrity that I do not expect them ever to stop this fetishisation, but ultimately, they can be forced to stop and appropriately punished in due course regardless. But those I ask to take this message to heart, are those whose hearts are in the right place. Do not make the mistake of the old men of the system, and rely on other people’s achievements for glory. Instead, earn glory through your own. All people are capable of doing so. It is just a question of will.